As a weekend bonus for subscribers, we connected with Donald Sherman, president and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), for his take on President Trump’s most corrupt move yet — the theft of nearly $2 billion from taxpayers for an insurrectionist slush fund he can operate with impunity.
Sherman characterized Trump’s self-dealing “settlement” with his own government as “corruption on a scale without precedent in America,” and argued its purpose is to incentive political violence.
“It’s an effort to absolve himself and his supporters from the insurrection he incited and to signal to the violent element of his base that if you engage in violence in support of him, you will not just be safe from prosecution, but made whole and then some,” he said. “So it’s not just backward-looking, it’s forward-looking. And it follows his pardoning of the January 6ers, which was another signal.”
Donald K. Sherman @donaldonethics.bsky.social
By launching over 600 products on his merch store this term, Trump has essentially put a "For Sale" sign on the presidency.
And if 2024 is any indication (the store brought in $8.8 million that year), the grift will bring in a hefty profit.
A transcript of Sherman’s chat with Public Notice contributor Thor Benson, lightly edited for clarity, follows. If you’d like to read it and aren’t already a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one. This newsletter (and my work in general) is entirely funded by readers, and paid subscribers are the only reason I’m able to keep everything we publish Monday through Friday free for everyone.
